How Do New Neighborhoods Stapleton and Lowry Differ from Denver as a Whole?

A recent study of “Housing Affordability in Stapleton” presents a demographic profile comparing Stapleton, Lowry, the city of Denver, and metro Denver. The city-owned Stapleton airport land was envisioned to become a neighborhood that would reflect the diversity of the city as a whole. How close did it come to that goal?

And how does Lowry, another new planned community, compare to the city as a whole? The charts below tell the story.

Charts were created by Front Porch using statistics compiled by BBC Research & Consulting for the housing affordability study referenced above. BBC’s data was taken from the 2011 – 2015 American Community Survey.

Socioeconomic DiversitySocioeconomic diversity was one of the goals for the Stapleton community as it was envisioned in the 90s. Many affluent families had moved to the suburbs during busing in the 70s, 80s and early 90s—and one of the goals was to bring those families back into the neighborhood mix. The affluent families did come, but in greater numbers than expected, creating an imbalance toward higher income. The chart below highlights that Stapleton has ended up with far less socioeconomic diversity than Lowry or the city as a whole.

Lower income is < $35,000; Middle is $35,000 to $$99,000; Higher is $100,000 or more

Household CompositionWith the original expectation that Stapleton would reflect the demographics of the city as a whole, the unexpectedly large number of children in Stapleton meant DPS needed more schools than had been planned. Compared to the city overall, Stapleton has almost double the number of households with one or more children under 18 years. And specifically the number of households with children under 5 years is double that of Denver. Not surprisingly that means Stapleton has fewer households with people over 60 than the city as a whole.

Racial and Ethnic Composition Stapleton and Lowy share an overrepresentation of Non-Hispanic whites and their proportion of Blacks is about half that of the city overall. In both Stapleton and Lowry, the Hispanic population is dramatically underrepresented relative to that of the city.

Housing Type The city overall is split about evenly between attached and detached homes. Stapleton is weighted more heavily toward detached homes and Lowry is weighted more heavily toward attached homes.

Owners and RentersLowry matches the city average of half owners and half renters. Stapleton has about three-quarters owners and one-quarter renters.

Number of BedroomsLowry matches the city’s average number of bedrooms per home, with about 40% having three bedrooms. Stapleton stands out in this comparison, with 69% of homes having three or more bedrooms.